CHARLOTTE, N.C.—A discrimination lawsuit filed by a former candidate for NASCAR’s Drive For Diversity program was settled Tuesday afternoon.

Michael Rodriguez, a former two-time Pennsylvania karting champion and youngest Super Late Model winner at Mountain (St. John’s, Pa.) Speedway, claimed in his lawsuit that he lost his opportunity to participate for appearing “too Caucasian,” and that’s why NASCAR rejected him at age 15 and 16 from trying out for the Drive For Diversity program in 2005 and 2006.

Rodriguez filed the suit against NASCAR and Access Communications, the company NASCAR hired from 2004-2008 to administer its diversity program to increase minorities’ participation in the sport, in U.S. District Court in January 2010, and the trial began Monday in Charlotte.

But after a day of jury selection, opening statements and testimony by Rodriguez’s father, the sides said Tuesday morning they had come to an agreement.

NASCAR was dismissed outright as a defendant to the suit, while Access and Rodriguez worked out a settlement. The Rodriguez family declined to speak about the details of the settlement.

Now 22 and not having driven in four years because of a lack of funding, Rodriguez said the settlement will allow him to compete in some ARCA races.

“(Racing now) is my plan,” Rodriguez said. “With any luck, we’ll get out there and win some races. … I’m very, very relieved (this is over).”

Rodriguez’s grandfather is from Puerto Rico, and Rodriguez was invited to the 2005 Drive For Diversity combine that took place at South Boston Speedway in Virginia but never drove a car.

Rodriguez's father, in testimony Monday, said that when they first arrived at the combine, the people handling the registration desk did not believe he was a minority and was trying to register a sister or another member of his family.

He also overheard an Access employee state that his son “looks like the poster boy for the Ku Klux Klan.”

Rodriguez then never got to drive the car in the combine.

In its trial brief, NASCAR argued that the color of his skin had no bearing on the decision to park him before he drove. NASCAR argued that Rusty Crucitti, an employee of Access or GMR Marketing, which worked with Access to administer the program, did not allow Rodriguez to participate because Rodriguez had earlier asked for some aspirin, and Crucitti, in a deposition, said he believed Rodriguez was disoriented after hitting his head on a trailer.

The next year, Rodriguez was picked as an alternate for the combine and ended up not being invited. At the meeting to determine who would go to the combine, another Ku Klux Klan reference was made about him, according to the testimony of Rodriguez’s father.

Access attorney Dhamian Blue in his opening argument stated that the statement was a “crude locker room joke,” and NASCAR attorney Jeffrey Pasek said none of the NASCAR officials even heard it before voting on whether Rodriguez could attend the 2006 combine.

NASCAR had denied the discrimination claims in its answer to the lawsuit. Pasek, in his opening statement, said Access had the final say of who was invited to the combine and it was the teams that eventually made the final cuts of which drivers they would hire.

"We were extremely confident with our position, and so we're pleased that we were dismissed from the suit," NASCAR spokesman David Higdon said.